The rants of a 30 something New Yorker. He's had it up to here with all of the world's shit, and he's gonna write about it.
A blog with fully written blogs as well as facebookian updates.
Stop by for a laugh. Stay for a schadenfreude.
Full platform when I get to Jay St.-Metrotech. It's over 90 degrees on this platform, and filled with humidity and stank. No R for 15 minutes. A Q showed up though . . . For those non-NYers, the Q is not supposed to stop there at all.
Then the R train I'm on held at Dekalb for 5 minutes. Then a ginger child starts crying. Fantastic.
An old Asian woman gets a seat, but leaves her old shopping bag collection in front of the doors. Prime AC spot taken by old shopping bags. I stare at her. She makes eye contact with me, doesn't understand why I'm staring, and goes back to braying in her native tongue with friends. Fucking bitch.
At every stop, a very wide woman, with the gaite of an old timey moustached villain, skulks around the train looking for a seat. Her constant movement forces the whole fucking train to accommodate her. The child keeps crying.
A guy begs for money. I feel like shit as this guy has to beg to eat, and I don't have money to give. All this shit with a side of guilt. Wonderful. The child is STILL crying. The train ride from hell ends.
A train ride that normally takes 30 minutes, takes an hour. I usually get a seat on this train ride without struggle.
This happened because the MTA is on its fucking period or something. Get it together. Just provide consistent service. That's all. Everyone's $2.75 has to at least provide consistency.
I'm on the R train to my new job. It's pretty awesome, because I get to take the R train over 90% of the way there, and there's an R train right around the corner from my house!
The downside is that I'm not taking as populated a train, so one of the greatest sources of material for this blog may have disappeared. . . . or so I thought.
I'm not a morning person, and the R train is slow, so I close my eyes for a brief snooze.
A very jolting "BLRRRRGH" wakes me up.
The guy who made this noise is facing the door next to me, with his cheeks puffed out, as he quickly hits the door with a closed fist. He turns around, walks to the opposite door, bends over, and vomits a little. It was all water . . . or at least it looked like water.
He angrily yells "FUCK!" as the doors open at the stop. He walks out to the platform, and proceeds to purge himself. This time, it's accompanied by all the sounds that one associates with throwing up. It sounds wonderful.
Here's the thing: I had every intention to notify people of the watery vomit. I would hope someone would do the same for me.
Then, a horde of people board the train.
I open my mouth to deter the masses, but it was too late. These people scuffle their feet across the watery sick, one after the other.
There had to be a lesson from this:
1. Don't put your shit on the floor of a subway car. There could be ANYTHING there. Piss, shit, cum, vomit, or anything else. Use your imagination. It's down there.
2. You can't help it. Your shoes will touch the floor where said piss, cum, vomit, etc. lies in wait. So, don't put your shoes on couches or clothes or anyone else. That's gross. In fact . . . I should start taking my shoes off at people's houses from now on. Gross.
Today, I am leaving my job to start a new one. It's a joyous occasion. Not just because I'll be making more money in my new job (stackin' papers), but also because I won't have to deal with the absolutely infuriating bullshit that is 34th street. Here's the shit I won't miss:
1. CANCER
Our nation is slowly quitting cigarettes. They're almost completely gone. Except for 34th street. Apparently, every smoker in the world makes their smoker's pilgrimage to Herald Square to walk and smoke. There isn't an inch of 34th street that I can walk on that isn't raped by the cancerous smokey offspring of someone's mouth.
Also, what's extra insulting, is these fuckers try every single method of alternate smoking under the sun. As if they take their nicotine through a cigarette with a blue electric tip, they won't have to get a tracheotomy later. Or if they inhale their tar gas through a black box with a nifty metal tip, they won't die 25 years earlier than they should.
These dumb fuckers think they're crafty. All they are is a bunch of inconsiderate cunts who hope to give all of 34th street a headache with a chance of death.
2. EMPIRE STATE HAWKERS
At this job, I got to walk past the Empire State Building every day. Pretty cool, right?
WRONG. FUCKING WRONG. Why? Because the Empire State Building employs an army of people bugging every person on the street to purchase tickets to get a tour. A fucking army. They stand in clumps, asking you if you're "going up". They also form an impenetrable wall with the tourists. I've had to walk in the middle of the street more times than I can count just to get around the mass of idiot tourists and sales people.
I hear you though. You're saying, "But Jaysef. Stop being an asshole. They are just trying to earn an honest wage."
Here's what I say to you: Fuck you. First, I'm allowed to have irrational hate of things, as long as I don't physically harm anyone. Second, they blocked me for months on end. I can't take that shit anymore. And last, some of those people aren't working. They seriously stand around shooting the shit about random things. I overheard, as I pushed past a group of them, a guy talking about "getting his nut". For real? Why the hell are you blocking everyone's way, talking about jizzing in someone. Move your dumb ass to the side of the street. Cum talk is not needed in the middle of the street.
And the worst part: the tourists that engage that shit. They don't realize the irreparable damage they're doing by engaging them. Go inside the building to buy your tickets. Stop clogging up the streets with your wealthy tourist ass, and go where you're supposed to go, you fucking sheep. Please, continue to come to New York. We want your rubles and yen and euros. But go where we tell you, nay, NEED you to go, so we can all get to work, to pay taxes, to make sure this bitch is still here so you can visit it!!! Fuckin dumb ass blonde swedish mother fucker and his gaggle of well adjusted teens getting in my way. I NEED A PAYCHECK MOTHER FUCKER!! I NEED TO WORK!!
3. THE 34TH STREET TRAIN STATION The 34th St. subway station is where order and law go to die. The shit is about 3 or 4 stories deep in the ground, filled with people that have no clue where they're going, and filled a cacophony of noise that drowns out any rational thoughts you might have. I feel like I'm walking into the fucking Mines of Moria or some shit. It is a nexus of time and dreams, meant to sap the very soul from you.
Me when I spend more than 5 minutes surround by fucktards at 34th street.
The one thing I will miss:
THE SUBWAY PERFORMERS
34th street, in my opinion, has the most insane cadre of crazies in the subway underground scene.
I've seen big bands, jazz groups, acrobats, rock bands, brass house groups, metal guitarists, and even a pop standards violin player. I will talk briefly about some of the highlights.
REMY FRANCOIS
Every once in a while, I would be greeted by the non-sensical tones of Remy Francois. He is just as you see him here. He wears a gold crown, has a wild, unkept black moustache, plays an electric guitar, and only sings songs in french.
The craziest part is that he ignores rhythm entirely. I would say he changes time signature every measure, but that would be assuming he honors a time signature in the first place. His sense of rhythm is so non-existent, that it throws you off your natural stride. I try to walk past him when he's playing, and every step I take becomes more gradually out of sync with my stride. He is a mind wizard with his music noise. I will miss him . . .I think.
MIKE GROISMAN
This dude SHREDS. The second you get off your train, this guy is blasting something and KILLING IT.
The crazy part is he is doing this at 9 AM. If you were tired when you got on the train, you are awakened by his metal melodies.
Also, if you're reading this Mike, your CDs don't have any music on them. Thought you should know. I don't regret giving you $5. . ..but I wish I had music.
ASIAN JAZZ DRUMMER
I don't have a picture of her, because I can't find any on the interwebs, which only fits her mystique.
One morning, I heard a jazz trio playing. It was a pretty cool thing to hear live so early in the morning. There was a older jewish man playing the saxophone, a middle age black man playing bass, and. . .. . a grumpy ass chinese woman KILLING the drums. She kept that shit clean, and she did it with a horrible grimace on her face. Also, her face never moved. While her body was moving furiously to keep the band in time, her head was in an alternate space and time. It stayed still the entire song. Her eyes were glazed over like her child was asking to watch Frozen for the hundreth time, and her frown was so epic that I'm sure Beowulf would even say "That's a good frown".
Her anger and discontent at playing the drums so masterfully was beautiful. I loved it.
Goodbye 34th St. Have a great, cancerous life. I'm off to DUMBO.
I am on a train that is like an ice box. It's a rarity that the temperature of a train is desirable. The train Shoggoth smiles upon me. . .
This is a Shoggoth I found on Wikipedia.
Of course, there must be an equal and opposite reaction.
There is a giant, anime baby Huey mother fucker standing next to me. He looks like The Dude and Yokozuna had a baby. His super power is the ability to take a bath in cooking oil and leave unscathed. His facial hair looks like it was fashioned by a blind person. Hell, I doubt he's looked in a mirror recently.
here's The Dude and a Yokozuna
He prefers to stare at me, or at least I think he's staring. It's hard to tell as his eyes are in the ever-expansive purgatory of "not open, but not closed". What I do know is that his breathing is definitely directed my way.
Although, in a strange way, I envy this man. The level with which he gives no fucks is astounding. This man probably floats through life reeking of food, dressing like a hobo, buying expensive electronics, not talking to anyone, doing really hard drugs in a relatively non- destructive manner, constantly flip flopping between being asleep and awake. There is no way that his brain, riddled with insanity, can give a shit about anything. He is a motley fool.
Of course, that was just the R train.
Now, I move to the D train. Oh, dear D train. The harbinger of the fastest ride to Manhattan combined with a crowd that looks like a Hasidic-Chinese Joel Osteen is about to give a sermon through their phone screens and newspapers.
The D train
The first person I encounter is asleep. And I mean ASLEEP. This woman's head is leaning off the wall behind her, ready to rest on the subway door. Her mouth is wide open, like she was a 4 year old ready to receive her first holy communion. There is an EPIC pimple on her forehead. If you were to look at it through a super microscope, you would see a village of nanites worshipping it's inevitable explosion. They have sacrificed one of their own in honor of its towering puss sepulcher. Poor Carl.
She keeps hitting my wallet in my side pocket with her head. That's not the problem. The problem is with each successive head butt, the unholy pimple inches closer and closer to my wallet.
I have smelled pure feces on a train. I've dodged a trail of urine cascading towards me on a train ride. I've seen someone explosively vomit on an N train at 2 AM. I've remained calm and collected during each incident.
If this pimple explodes on my pants I may just throw up everywhere. I move. Fast. And then she drools where my shoe used to be.
I survive another train ride. The scars remain etched on my soul forever. I become more in sync with the shared PTSD of being a New Yorker.
This song has pissed me off to no end from day mother fucking one. Mainly because the lyrics are douchey as fuck. Thanks Stephen Schwartz.
Here's some highlights of this abortion:
You have a section that repeats "people" three times and "you never knew" twice.
The first line repeats "land" twice.
Pocahontas asks her new arian friend if he can "sing with all the voices of the mountain" and "paint with all the colors of the wind". BITCH, CAN YOU?? I will hand you a god damn paint brush right now, and turn a fan on, and watch you paint JACK SHIT on a blank canvas. Also, mountains don't sing. You know what usually makes sound on mountains? WIND!! You know what can be used to make colors??? DIRT FROM, OH, LETS SAY A MOUNTAIN!!! SING WITH THE VOICES OF THE WIND, AND PAINT WITH ALL THE COLORS OF THE MOUNTAINS YOU DUMB FUCKING BITCH!!!!@!@!@#$!@@%!$^!$#^@#@!!#
This shit was painted entirely with paint made from dirt. http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=339392.0
Pocahontas says "heron and the otter are my friends" . . . . .You fucking sadist, Pocahontas. Otters eat heron, and heron try to eat baby otters. There is a very graphic video, which I won't post here, of a mother otter defending her babies from a full grown heron. This angry ass mother otter holds the heron down, WHILE IT'S STILL ALIVE, and chews on the mother fucker's back while it cries out in pain. Eventually, the otter is joined by its husband, and finishes the job by DROWNING THE HERON. They chew it alive, and drown it. What a horrible fucking death.
Essentially, Pocahontas lets this shit happen. They're your fucking friends Pokes. They're your friends. Stop your friends from murdering your other friends in the most graphic manner possible. Holy shit. Pocahontas: You are a cunt. Here's the link if anyone wants to see it. Not for the faint of heart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSc_JE0q46I
Pocahontas says "have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?" I've heard a wolf cry to the moon, yes. But a BLUE CORN moon? Fuck no bitch. You need some fucking glasses, or a stronger fire, or a seeing eye heron to show you that the moon looks pretty white in a clear sky. OH WAIT. YOU CAN'T GET A SEEING EYE HERON, BECAUSE YOUR FRIEND THE OTTER SHREDDED IT'S BACK UP, THEN DROWNED IT. Looks like you're going to see a spotty ass moon for the rest of your days. Or at least until you get smallpox.
SEE BITCH. IT'S WHITE
One of the last lines is "you can own the earth and still, all you'll own is earth until . . " Ok. Even though it's repetitive, it still sounds pretty good. I'll give you that one Schwartz.
Speaking of, WHAT THE FUCK STEPHEN??!?!? It's not like you haven't made good things before. Thank you for Godspell and Hunchback and Pippin and other things, but your lyrics for Colors of the Wind sound like a Hufflepuff wrote them after doing a line of cocaine sniffed off the dick of a Basilisk covered in Polyjuice potion. Pour one out for J.K.
He's a fucking grinning bobcat. He's grinning. . .. because he's a mother fucking grinning bobcat.
This shit send me in such a fucking rage, I barely know what to do with myself.
Do you walk into a clock business, and ask "what you doing with that clock?" The mother fucker works on clocks. He's fixing a fucking clock. What the fuck else would he be doing? Looking for his lost foreskin?
Same thing with this harmless fucking bobcat, just trying to get his grin game on. Then you're dumb, blue corn moon seein', dead heron friend havin', dirt song hearing, air color seeing ass walks up to him and says "DERPDERP!!! Y U GRIN??!?!?"
God damnit Pocahontas. I would watch that bobcat eat you. Like you did with your otter friend, which I can only assume you conspired to kill off your heron friend, I will sit on the river bank, repeating words over and over, as that bobcat rips your throat out, fucks it, and uses your throat cavity as a womb with which to grow more grinning bobcats.
Cannibal the Musical. Watch it.
Alright. Rant over.
Move along now. And have a happy 4th. Make sure to watch USA vs Japan tomorrow at 7 PM EST/4 PM PST. They're representing our country. Watch them.
I turn on my computer. This can take a bit, so I go get water and coffee. The two liquids that I'm convinced are made from the blood of Christ.
I open my browser.
I turn on Spotify. Seriously considering a subscription with how much I use that shit. I start up Benny Sing's album "Benny...At Home". On the cover, the artist sits at a table in his home, looking off to the side with a spoon or something in his mouth. If I had to guess, I would say he used it to stir his coffee, which sits in front of him. He has an unkept kitchen counter behind him, and clothes or something in the foreground. He looks unkept, as if he just woke up.
To me, this is what the creative process beginnings look like. Unkept. Unruly. Untethered. With coffee. Also, the music screams of a man who knows what his sound is. Benny Sings doesn't make someone else's music. He makes his. And nobody else makes his music either. Give it a listen, and see what I mean.
I light a candle. Even if it's the middle of the day. Why? Because in my head, that's object manifestation of meditation. And what is the creative process, if not an active meditation? A stream of consciousness meant to attain a higher state of being. The candle gets lit.
My cat, Raisin, interrupts me several times. This is not a true interruption as it's only for love. Love is never an interruption. She is still Satan, but a very beautiful, loving Satan.
I even get interrupted by my wife, who is wondering why the fuck I'm awake at 8 am on a day off. She tries to convince me to come back to bed. It's a weak attempt, but only because she is tired. All I have to say is "I'm writing" and she says "Ok". That's that. I love her.
And then, I write.
Steven Pressfield wrote an AMAZING book called "The War of Art" he describes his own ritual that precedes his creative process. I never truly understood it's effect until now. He also talks about listening to that voice inside you, telling you to do something. The thing that keeps that voice from working is called Resistance. It can manifest as many things, but no matter what form it takes, it is extremely destructive. Overcoming Resistance is one of the hardest things a creative can ever do, but it is also the most rewarding.
Here's the key for me: Not only is overcoming resistance rewarding to yourself, but it is ultimately rewarding for the world. The world NEEDS your creativity. Depriving this planet of your art, be it science or painting or building cars, hurts you and everyone on this planet.
Here's the final paragraph of The War of Art:
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.
I had trouble understanding this for a long time. Doesn't the actor do their art, at least in the smallest part, for the attention? Don't get me wrong. Acting is awesome, and it tells stories in ways that can change the world and shift people's spirits. Still, let's be real. Actors have an attention whore selling their wares in the red light district of their souls.
I'm sitting here writing, post ritual, realizing that there is a part of me that wants your attention. Of course. Duh. But that is so insignificant to the feeling I get from writing. It's not important. It never enters the equation. I HAVE to write. I denied this for a long time.
(this next part seems like a brag, but I promise you it's not. I'm not the next great american novelist. I just know what I need to do now. Stop reading your own agenda into my shit. Fucker.)
The universe wanted me to write! I can't tell you how many times I would get "you should be a stand up comedian" or "you should write" or "you should have a blog" or "you're really creative". All of those things sounded impossible. I mean. . . . why would someone want to read my shit? I'm not good enough.
Read that again. That is Resistance talking: Why would someone want to read my shit? I'm not good enough.
FUCK. THAT.
Resistance thinks it knows how good you are, which is never good enough. The truth is, whether you think your good or not is completely irrelevant. It's not your job to judge your own art. It's what your heart and head want, nay, NEED to do that is important. The world will be filled with people who think you're shit, and there will be people who think you're great. That is also irrelevant. What matters is that you embrace what the voice deep inside you desires.
Little did I know, my voice needed to write.
So, I get my water and coffee. I light my candle. I participate in the first activity of my life that I truly feel deserves a ritual. I cry as I write this. Because it's beautiful. I'm crushing Resistance today. For the first time. Truly.
I'm not a great writer, nor have I ever claimed to be. But, after much pressure from my wife, I have started this blog.
A couple disclaimers before we get into the meaty bits:
1. Do not read or subscribe to this blog if you are easily offended, or have parents that don't want your precious innocence besmirched.
If I'm going to have a blog, it sure as hell isn't going to be censored by my subconscious or you. So, don't stick around if you're gonna get all upety about anything, you baby faced little fuck.
2. There will be nerdery!!!
I don't intend for this to be a nerd blog. I'm not going to write solely about Star Wars and D&D, but, as this blog is about me, these extremely nerdy subjects will find their way into my posts.
This is your chance to back out now . . . .
Ok. If you're still around, look at the picture below of Christopher Lee (r.i.p.) as Saruman with a guitar. Keep looking. KEEP LOOKING.
EL MANIFESTO DE JAY!!
I've had a long history of writing rants on Facebook. They've usually revolved around my in the moment reactions to social indecencies in the world around me on the street, on the subway, out of my window, at movie theatres, etc.
The time has come to make a central location for these rants. No longer will they be lost in the fucktardery of Facebook, awaiting your thumb swipe of ignorance.
Here they be. For your viewing pleasure.
I intend to put my Facebookian updates here, as well as write an article when it strikes my fancy. I may also repost old Facebook updates of mine. . .for content.
